Chapley Group, Munno Para Shopping Centre Southern Entrance and Mall Upgrade

Progressing Design Documentation  

To bring the architectural intent to life, Sarah’s team worked closely with the structural design consultants to coordinate the design with the structural elements and services infrastructure.

While this was a lengthy process, Sarah leveraged its relationships amongst its network of experienced subcontractors to collaboratively assess the drawings and fast track the works.

Sarah added an additional project coordinator coordinate the extensive documentation, tracking all changes and variations and communicating regularly with the client’s team.

Managing Additional Internal Scope

After project award, the Chapley Group identified value in upgrading additional items not initially in the scope of Sarah’s works, including more than $1.5 million in lighting and ceiling upgrades.

With a 3-month lead time on the lighting products, Sarah’s team reprogrammed works at the end of the program and added additional night-shift crews for installation to complete the works within the original schedule.

Scope Increase at Southern Entrance

Scope changes were also identified at the Southern Entrance Works, including service fit outs inside the Asian Grocery Store, window glazing for the food tenancies, and the additional of accessible bathrooms facilities, totalling more than $1million.

To meet the non-negotiable completion date to allow tenants to maximise Christmas trading hours, Sarah employed additional subcontractors and night shift works, and provided tenants with early access to plan for occupation.

Minimising Impacts to Operational Tenants

The Southern Entrance works required Sarah to remove the external façade outside a bank during trading hours, tie in steelworks to the existing structure, and access services in the bank’s ceiling space.

To minimise noise and vibration impacts to the bank’s staff and customers, the team scheduled certain works outside of trading hours, and communicated daily with staff to understand when works in the ceiling space would be least disruptive.

Keeping the Public Safe and Informed

It was integral that the Centre’s customers could continue to access all parts of Centre during construction and move around the precinct safely and easily.

Construction traffic was carefully directed away from the main entrances and into site using defined access and egress paths, and pedestrians was separated from construction with barriers and directional signage.

Managing Internal Demolition Impacts

The mall tiling upgrade required up to 80m² of tiles to be lifted each night after centre closure, with subcontractors working through the night to cover tenancies in dust-proof sheeting, remove tiles, grind back and clean the exposed cement, install transition strips between the existing tiling and the concrete for safe movement between areas, and vacuum the mall prior to trading commencement the following day.

When enough tiles had been removed, tiling contractors worked overnight to relay large sections, using rapid set glue and heaters to ensure the tiles were ready to be used for the day’s trading.

This process was repeated until a total of 6500m² of tiles were replaced.

Building Excitement and Retaining Trade

It was integral that shoppers could continue to use the Centre easily during construction, to ensure that tenants did not lose trade.

Sarah’s team worked closely with the Centre’s marketing team to develop vibrant and informative hoardings and an engaging social medica campaign designed to excite customers about the new tenants and overall shopping experience.

The used pavers and old food court seating were offered free of charge to local residents, and Sarah coordinated a pick-up system and supplied forklift personnel to assist.

Alternative Material Selection

Leveraging Sarah’s experience delivering high-quality retail precincts, the team carefully reviewed the architect’s proposed materials and proposed several alternative materials to improve durability, aesthetics and whole of life costs.

For example, the original paving was deemed too rough for trollies to move easily through the dining precinct and was replaced with a superior product while retaining the desired aesthetic, and the external metal cladding was replaced with fibre cement sheeting to reduce ongoing maintenance costs.

Value Management

As the result of a comprehensive Value Management workshop, Sarah’s team identified more than $80,000 in savings.

Initiatives included reducing the extent of the external dining seating to improve pedestrian movement through the area and laying pavers directly onto compacted soil instead of concrete, not only significantly reducing costs but futureproofing the area for additional service installations.